Many urban communities such as major metropolitan areas have laws that require pet owners to dispose of pet feces. Home owners with pets have the problem with feces accumulating overtime. Excessive feces are a sanitary hazard and a public nuisance.
To solve these problems most pet owners have resorted to carrying plastic bags. However, the person has to bend over/kneel and physically scoop up the feces. This undesirable squatting exposes persons performing this function to embarrassment, unpleasant odors, mess, bacterial risks, and the problem as to where to discard the remnants.
Several pressurized water source patents have been proposed in this area but fail to solve the problems presented above. U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,040 to Lazar; U.S. Pat. No. 4,744,380 to Sheriff; and U.S. Pat. No 4,957,131 to Robinson describe water jet type cleaning attachments. These attachments generally require connections to pressurized fixed water hose type connections limiting their use. Thus, these devices are not portable. Furthermore, these devices would not be useful in environments that do not have pressurized water supplies, such as parkgrounds and camps. Their bulky longitudinal housings would also be difficult to both carry and manipulate when needed.
Other types of bulky devices have also been proposed such as shovel scoopers named "pooper scooper" such as the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,290,080, and the "earth clod chopper" described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,278 to Shipley. However, these shovels and choppers are not easily portable, require direct contact with excrement and must be cleaned after use. Both equipment require handling the feces to a final disposal container. Furthermore, each of these tools require the user to have some physical dexterity and coordination in order to be used. Furthermore, the shovels and choppers will inherently expose the user to the full odor and mess of handling excrement.